aaa

Missed Prayer for Years: What to Do?

03 November, 2025
Q A person wasn’t practicing Islam, then started practicing Islam, and now they have to make up salah for many, many years. What should they do? Is there something called Qaza-e-Umri — the practice of making up all missed obligatory prayers (fard and wajib) from one’s lifetime? I mean, can we just do one action to get it all done with? Or, you know, can we go to the Haram and pray one rak‘ah worth 100,000 rewards — is there some kind of “buy one, get one free” scheme going on?

Answer

Dr. Yasir Qadhi
03 November, 2025

In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful. 

All praise and thanks are due to Allah, and peace and blessings be upon His Messenger.

In this fatwa:

According to most scholars, missed prayers (Qada) should be made up over time, taking priority over Sunnah prayers. However, Ibn Taymiyyah held that missed prayers cannot be made up; instead, one should repent (Tawbah) and offer extra nafl prayers as a sign of sincerity.

In response to this question, Dr. Yasir Qadhi — the Dean of The Islamic Seminary of America and the resident scholar at the East Plano Islamic Center — states:

This is one of the most common questions asked, and as I’ve explained multiple times, there are two opinions which kind of, sort of, overlap.

The first opinion — which is the dominant and majority opinion of our scholars — is that you should try to make up for all the past prayers you haven’t prayed, at a reasonable level.

So, if you haven’t prayed for, let’s say, 10 years, then for the next 10 years try to do double. That means you prioritize making up missed prayer over Sunnah prayer.

So, instead of praying the Sunnah of Zhuhr prayer (two before and two after), if you haven’t prayed for a decade, you would pray the obligatory Zhuhr prayer, and then after that, another four — that would count as making up for a missed Zhuhr.

You do this for roughly the same number of years that you weren’t praying, and you try to be honest about it. At the end of the day, you can’t be exactly sure, but Allah knows you’re trying.

The second opinion — which is Ibn Taymiyyah’s view — is that there’s no making up per se, but there is tawbah (repentance) and extra nafl prayer. There’s no making up for missed prayer in the strict sense, but you still have to pray extra as a sign that you’re doing your best to make up.

So both opinions agree that you should pray extra. The difference is that in the first opinion, your intention is making up for missed prayer, while in the second, your intention is that Allah will forgive you because you’re doing extra Nafl prayer.

Without a doubt, this is something you should try your best to do. Whichever opinion you follow, I don’t see it as a very big issue.

👉 Explore related rulings making up missed prayer:

Almighty Allah knows best.

Source: Live Q&A Session with Shaykh Dr. Yasir Qadhi

Missed Prayer for Years
About Dr. Yasir Qadhi
Yasir Qadhi was born in Houston, Texas and completed his primary and secondary education in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. He graduated with a B.Sc. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Houston, after which he was accepted as a student at the Islamic University of Madinah. After completing a diploma in Arabic, he graduated with a B.A. from the College of Hadith and Islamic Sciences. Thereafter, he completed a M.A. in Islamic Theology from the College of Dawah, after which he returned to America and completed his doctorate, in Religious Studies, from Yale University.Currently he is the Dean of al-Maghrib Institute, the Resident Scholar of the Memphis Islamic Center, and a professor at Rhodes College, in Memphis, TN.